Book about killer of two local girls is thought-provoking, but it doesn’t delve into why society creates such men

San Diego author and journalist Caitlin Rother asserts that she wrote “Lost Girls,” a true-crime book about convicted sex offender John Gardner, who murdered local teens Chelsea King and Amber Dubois, to educate the public and redress the fact that “we, as a society, seem to have so little understanding of these men and how to deal with them.”

Noting that she hopes “this story will give unprecedented insight into all the facets of a sex offender,” Rother describes her aims as idealistic. But if her goal is to explain how to “deal with these men,” she should explain more fully how they — and all the attitudes that contribute to the prevalence of sexual violence — come to be. Examining a sex offender like Gardner for purposes of “insight” will do little to prevent such crimes in future, let alone “change the system in a positive way” (another stated goal).

What would be more useful than detailing Gardner’s biography, as Rother does in the book, would be an examination of how and why our society is a breeding ground for the types of sexualized crime committed by Gardner.

A well-written, thought-provoking read, “Lost Girls” does not sensationalize the crimes, nor spend much time on the details of the actual murders. Instead, it focuses on Gardner’s history, concentrating in particular on what Rother calls “the flawed system” that allows “him and predators like him to roam free.” In short, the book suggests that if only we had better mental health facilities, better legislation and more effective incarceration, then the murders of Chelsea and Amber could have been prevented. While the aim to elucidate problems within such systems is laudable, it falls into the trap of blaming individuals, rather than delving into how our society as a whole is dysfunctional when it comes to sexuality, mental illness, violence and, in particular, rape. Indeed, Rother’s description of Gardner’s family as “dysfunctional on many levels” could just as well be used to describe society, but Rother does not extend her analysis to this important conclusion.

Constructing Gardner as a “sexual predator” and “children, teenagers, and grown women” as “prey,” Rother fails to account for the prevalence of sexual violence, instead individualizing such crimes and suggesting the solution is to incarcerate predators and/or get them the mental health they need. While these may be necessary steps after such crimes occur, what about preventing such crimes?

Rother indicates that preparation and caution are necessary forms of prevention, putting forward details about self-defense classes, not walking alone, and the purchase of Tasers, mace or pepper spray as viable ways to deal with “strange men.” However, she does not consider how to stop the creation of said “strange men.” Can we in fact call such men “strange” when sexual violence is so pervasive in our society? According to the Department of Justice, more than 300,000 women and almost 93,000 men are raped each year.

Yet, as a society, we remain relatively recalcitrant when it comes to this topic — much like the 13-year-old girl assaulted by Gardner who didn’t want to call the police because she was worried about “having people know what happened.” Perhaps a similar worry is what partly fuels the anger directed at the book — a book that reveals an uncomfortable truth: rape, not murder, was Gardner’s primary motive. When Rother asked Gardner about his motives for attacking Chelsea, he says, “I wanted to have sex, and I was going to have sex.” The book also documents his claim that “I like the raping part. I don’t like the killing part, especially if it’s bloody.”